Nvidia pays $6B for Poolside's 'Model Factory' to rival its own customers
nvidia licensed poolside's 'model factory' software for $6 billion to build its own nemotron models, directly competing with the customers it sells chips to.
nvidia is paying $6 billion to license poolside's 'model factory' software and hire 109 employees, including the team that developed the laguna model, while investing an additional $1 billion at a $12 billion valuation. structured as a licensing and hiring deal rather than a traditional acquisition, this arrangement allows nvidia to absorb talent and technology without triggering intense regulatory reviews. this strategy expands nvidia's internal ai capabilities, specifically for its nemotron line of open models, and puts the company in direct competition with major customers like microsoft and meta. as nvidia shifts from selling shovels to mining gold, this signals a risky transition that could alienate key cloud partners who rely on nvidia gpus for their own ai infrastructure.